70 TRAVELS IN THE EIGHTIES. 



on my clothes again while I hurried back to the 

 house. Possibly the timely discovery of those harm- 

 less-looking leeches to which the great Swede had 

 given so terrible a name, had saved me from an 

 experience like his. 



Next day I left for a seventy-mile journey down 

 the Shellefteo to Bastusele. 



We slept at a log hut half-way down the Udjaure, 

 and next day left early, the boatman telling me not to 

 fish until we came to a place where there were " Stora 

 laxor " big fish. The place he alluded to was directly 

 above the first series of rapids after the Udjaure Lake, 

 which is also called the Storafvan, or Great Lake. It 

 was a lovely spot. As we floated slowly down upon 

 the outlet, where the great river left the lake, with 

 Olaf, my boatman, resting upon his oars, I felt a 

 double excitement. The first was anxiety to catch 

 some of these monstrous trout that Edholm said 

 abounded here ; and the second originated in my 

 remembering that, after catching them, there were 

 four or five rapids to be shot. It was true that the 

 rapids were not very dangerous, not nearly so much 

 so as others we descended later, and Forstrom had 

 been up and down them before. Still they were the 

 first of the kind I had seen, and their dull roar was 

 hardly in perfect accordance with that peace and 

 repose so suggestive of the angler's art. 



We were shut in by tall pine-trees, and as the lake 

 narrowed gradually a slight current became percep- 

 tible. Blue stones became visible, twenty feet below, 



